Calm Down, Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga was at SXSW last weekend, and apparently went on some kind of angsty tirade about how she'd rather quit music than conform to the industry's standards of beauty and blah blah blah. She goes on to say that she doesn't want to be compared to Katy Perry and doesn't get what the [bleep] Katy has to do with her and that their music couldn't be more different.

Listen, Lady Gaga.

Can we just slow your roll for a minute?

You've had your turn. Really, it's been fun. You've had your meat dress; you've had your public "hangings" and your political statements. We humored you that one time you dressed up like a man dating yourself and both attended an award show AND accepted an award on your own behalf as that persona.

So don't try to act like we're all trying to bring you down and judging you. Literally nothing you could do would shock us anymore. Trust me, it's not that.

I mean I liked "Poker Face" and "Bad Romance" as much as the next girl but, hate to break it to you, kid, maybe your songs just aren't quite as good anymore. It's not 2008. It's 2014.

And maybe now we like Katy Perry better, okay? Maybe you should hush your mouth about Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson because since when does wearing a cupcake bra make her more sexualized by the industry than you, who is nearly naked almost every time we see you? When you write a song as catchy as "Roar," you can talk to us about your problems with Katy Perry. YEAH I SAID IT. "Roar" is better than "Applause." Yup. That’s right; I'm controversial (if only a few months late).

SIDE NOTE: your songs could be more different than Katy Perry's. They could be like...instrumental soundscapes played with only PVC pipes. Or, y'know, death metal. But they aren’t. They are synth-driven pop songs. Just like Katy’s.

You also said that when people try to make you look pretty (are they? Is anyone really trying to tell you what you should look like at this point?), you just want to look ugly instead because you're rebellious. (For the record, when you say "I'm rebellious" I think that disqualifies you as being rebellious. Just like saying "I'm classy" or marketing something as "fashion jewelry." If you have to say it, it's probably not true.) Are we fourteen years old, here? Are we now making decisions JUST to be going against the perceived grain you think society is projecting on you? Ugh.

So let's just calm down with the rage rants, okay, Stefani? Lose the 'tude.

You wear all the coffee filter and trash bag dresses you want. You keep on doing you, wearing scary teeth and trying to make dreadlocks happen, making sub-par pop music and experimenting with using real blood on stage or whatever it is you do in your spare time. It's cool, really. I'm not saying you have to stop those things. I'm just saying don't act like the world is trying to oppress you and make you into this bubblegum pop star. We literally could not care less what you do with your life. But don't be surprised if we just stay over here where the a capella covers of "Let It Go" overflow like the land of milk and honey and I'm still listening to Taylor Swift's "22" on repeat.

P.S. Sorry if this was harsh. I just really like Katy Perry.

Who do you think is better, Katy Perry or Lady Gaga?

The Legend of Lady Gaga (And also where the heck is she?)

LOL remember when she looked this normal?

Once upon a time, there was a bright, young, up-and-coming singer named Stefani Germanotta--known to most by her stage name, Lady Gaga.

The young woman burst onto the music scene, first appearing in an episode of The Hills before taking the world by storm just a few months later.

Her first hit, "Just Dance," though ridiculous, had an addictive melody and synth composition. Resistance was, as I learned, futile.

Soon she became known for more than just her music; her outlandish outfits came to be expected and even anticipated by audiences across the globe. To us, they were watercooler fodder. To her, statements on society.

Either way, no matter how larger-than-life her persona became, most people were still on board. It's all a part of her image. It's performance art. It's a character. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was working.

Lady Gaga cranked out hit after hit off her debut album. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing "Poker Face" or "Bad Romance." Plus, this is when people still kind of liked Glee, so we heard about 900 versions of any given Gaga song.

Every now and then she would do some respected side project or performance to remind us she was actually talented--singing with Tony Bennett, acoustic piano versions of her electronic pop hits--all of which totally won me over.

I stood by Lady Gaga, despite her ever-growing antics. I defended her to my friends. Not in a "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE" kind of way, but in a "you know, she's actually pretty talented even though she's crazy" kind of way.

She won me over time & time again until I took a step back and realized her path had at some point crossed a line into being creepy and no longer just a celebrity being a celebrity.

I hold celebrities to a different standard of humanity. They are allowed to be about 150% crazier than normal human beings because their entire life relies on self-promotion and they live in the spotlight and blah blah blah. Plus most of them aren't Christians anyway so that right there gives them a different frame of reference on what counts as acceptable behavior and what doesn't. So I can't really hold them up to my own standard and judge them accordingly. I mean, I can, but I understand why they don't live their lives the way I would if I were them.

Anyway, all that to say, I have a fairly reasonable bar of expectation for celebrities before I'm going to go all "this person is a nut job" on them.

But y'all, Lady Gaga took a turn. Suddenly it wasn't just meat dresses and Kermit hats anymore. Suddenly she was like performing seances on stage and pretending to be hanged and there was always a lot of blood. I mean why so much blood, Gaga?

All this would be fine if her music had stayed up-to-par. Let's face it, we as a society are willing to overlook a whole tankload of crazy if the person still makes solid art.

But no. Lady Gaga's much-anticipated sophomore album was largely a letdown. I mean "Born this Way" is pretty catchy but we all kind of agreed it wasn't very original. "You and I" is admittedly a pretty great song, but I'd already heard her perform it, and "Edge of Glory" was fine but not fantastic. No one cared about the rest of the album.

The jukebox of semi-generic synth-pop that was Born This Way was kind of the nail in the coffin for Lady Gaga, I think. That combined with her never-ending attempts at activism.

I quote the new Golden Moon Buffet podcast (which you should totally listen to BTW) when I say, "People don't like it when people try to do more than one thing."

It's true. If you're a singer, don't try to start a nonprofit. If you're a singer, don't try to act in movies about Facebook. The public will not thank you for it.

The only person who can get away with stuff like that is Beyonce and that is because she is great. I would add J.Lo to the list but she's very mediocre at music AND acting so I'm not really even sure how she's as famous as she is.

The question I pose to you now is, WHERE has Lady Gaga gone? I haven't read anything about her in months, and we definitely haven't heard a new single in a while.

I don't peg her as the type of person to give up. It's highly possible that she could be hibernating in a human-sized cocoon waiting for the right moment to do some sort of like David Blaine emergence and burst into her new single and she's like totally naked except for a mic headset (because isn't that the only thing she hasn't done yet?) and covered in goop and she's like gotten some zoologist to breed a real live phoenix and it swoops down and bursts into flames and then no one's even there to see it because no one cares about her anymore.

I'm just speculating, here.

Thus concludes the meteoric rise & fall of Lady Gaga.

Where do you think she is? Do you want her to come back or stay in the cocoon?

Botanists Name Fern After Lady Gaga

It's what every girl dreams of, really. When we're six years old, we sit on our tufted window seat (all great reveries involve window seats), gaze through the raindrops trickling down the glass panes and sigh, "one day, my prince will come…and I'll be so famous a fern will be named after me." Seriously, is there any higher honor in all the world?

Having stars named after you is for amateurs. Anyone can do that. But a fern? That stuff's real.

I wrote that romanticized introduction to tell you that botanists have named a fern after Lady Gaga.

Their explanation for this nonsense was 1) that this fern, like Lady Gaga, is gender-ambiguous or something and 2) it has a DNA sequence that spells out GAGA. So logically naming it after someone who got prosthetic horns on her cheeks was the next step in this process.

Not only am I surprised that botanists know who Lady Gaga is, but I am also concerned as to what this means for the scientific community and the rest of society.

CONCERNS AND/OR QUESTIONS:

1. In the future, are botanists going to have to reference Lady Gaga in a lab somewhere, long after she is remotely relevant? "Um, yes, that's the rare Lady Gaga. It first appeared in 2012, marking the first signs of the rapid decline of any remaining integrity in the field of science, and has been thriving in the pot next to the Cee Lo ever since." [SIDE NOTE: Also already in the mix are Soulja Boy Tell 'Ems and Ludacrises, named by none other than Tom Haverford in Season 2 of Parks and Rec.]
2. School children will be sitting in their hover-chairs watching a hologram and learning about these green things that used to grow (has no one seen Wall-E?) and be forced to ask who Lady Gaga was. Who wants to be the one to explain that?
3. Was this a totally rash decision? Will these botanists be excommunicated from the rest of the botanical community due to the fact that they ventured too far into popular culture, playing to the least common denominator? OR will they be hailed as heroes for getting botany back in the news? (Really, it's been too long, am I right?)
4. I feel like if you're going to name a plant after Lady Gaga it's got to be loud and colorful and oddly shaped. A fern? Really? Those sad-looking (because they hang down) plain old plants that hang on porches across suburbia? Ask one million people what their favorite plant is and you'll get a million answers. Almost certainly none of them will be "fern."
5. If you want a plant to be awesome, throw caution to the wind and just name it Beyonce. That thing will survive. I guarantee at least 13 percent of 6th graders will change what they want to be when they grow up immediately. And maybe you could even cross-pollenate with a Jay-Z plant (which you'd have to add if you're going to do this) and create (wait for it...) BLUE IVY. HEYO! I should totally be a botanist. Or just a plant-namer.

So…like, what happens now? They just go on calling this plant Gaga or they say "jay kay jay kay you guys, that was good for the news story but let's go back to calling it oeaihfdsoahfoashguiasdfpjo [unintelligible]."

I suppose only time will tell. I for one am going to track down a botanist (because I know zero) in about six months and see if they still know what I'm talking about.

Who do you wish they would name a plant after?

P.S. Today is my husband's and my 2nd anniversary!! He is the best and I'm so glad I married him. Just had to let everyone know. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.